Field Stories

I've been teaching for over 20 years. I've got a few stories to tell.

Flavio stole through the thick Angolan brush, his bare feet bleeding and bruised, the firelight of burning huts illuminating his back as he pushed into the night. At dawn, when the soldiers returned to the charred village to look for survivors Flavio was well into his 500 mile trek to the Congo where, now an orphan, he stowed away on a freighter and sailed to the United States. In 1994, in a cramped sweltering classroom in inner-city Houston, a tall, ropy-limbed African boy held out his strong hand to shake mine. His neatly-pressed clothes were a size too small, but his eyes sparkled with light.

Robert E. Lee High school - overflowing with over 3000 mostly immigrant students - was an oasis for refugees from crises across the globe: Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti, Colombia, Vietnam, El Salvador, Afghanistan. Over 100 countries were represented in our school and strolling down the hall, if you listened carefully, there was no telling what language or story you might hear. Despite their burdens - some worked forty hours a week, some were parents, others were their own parents - the tired, poor, and huddled students of Lee High seemed exceptionally grateful to be in school. Lee was like a balloon they blew up each morning and then climbed inside, its walls the thinnest protection from the harsh world outside.

While I taught my students the history of their new home, they taught me the story of suffering. By Christmas we had buried Jean, a lanky happy kid from Jamaica, excited about graduation, crushed on the way to school; mourned the mother of my 16 year-old student Edilson, killed in a hit and run as she walked to work, making him an old orphan; and then there were all the students I never met whose journeys to the promised land were cut short - stopped at the border, stepped on a landmine, thrown from a freight train, drowned by bandits. But I also learned about resilience in my students’ excitement in their new lives and experiences: we loaded into my car for free-day at the Museum of Fine Arts on free-day, I traded them driving lessons in my Subaru (“it’s like a toaster on wheels, Meester”) for Cumbia dance lessons for me and my wife, and together we invented bilingual nicknames for their classmates - Freddy Cabeza, “Fred Head”; Nestor Alegria, “Happy”; and Jose “K” Rico. The past was so hard that, like air escaping a balloon, life forced them onward. 8:00 a.m., studying the gilded age after a late-shift at the grocery store, or a long night nursing a sick younger sibling back to health, my students slumped on their battered desks, dreaming of a brighter future. A cargo ship carried Flavio across the Atlantic, and at the end of his year at Lee his brilliant soccer skills took him to college. His eyes shone as he walked across the graduation platform and into the future. Hope is not quantifiable, cannot be learned from a lecture, or measured on a test; but it is one of the most valuable things we can ever learn.

A Republic Madam - The Musical.

As Benjamin Franklin left the Pennsylvania State House after the final meeting of the Constitutional Convention on September 17, 1787, the wife of the mayor of Philadelphia asked him what the new American government would be. 81 year old Franklin turned frailly and slowly replied, “A republic, madam. If you can keep it.” For the past 20 plus years I’ve taught civics, government, and history knowing that the survival of our republic rests upon a well educated public. L’etat c’est us, after all! We gave ourselves a republic and we could take it away. It’s up to we the people to safeguard it. As Franklin said to the mayor’s wife, and Michael Jackson sang to our great nation, we’re the only ones who could keep this good thing goin’ baby!

A republic is a very good thing to keep, indeed.

Republican democracy (we added the democracy part later, Franklin and his ilk weren’t too keen on the government by the people part of democracy - in fact, they never once dropped the word democracy in the Constitution) is one of the best things to ever happen to we the people. Here’s the thing- not all of us are oligarchs, kleptocrats, monarchs, theocrats, tsarinas, or Sith Lords - but no matter how mean-spirited, shrill, or foul tempered we are - each and every one of us is people. So it’s good to have a government by the thing we all, by definition, are! And here’s a fun fact (like some facts aren’t fun), no democracy has ever gone to war against another. And, going out on a limb here, I don’t think war is something worth fighting for.

Our republic can’t keep itself.

There have always been forces opposed to the power of the people and there always will be, but make no mistake,today our republic is under attack. The Framers gave us a Constitution that kept the reins of power firmly in the hands of the few. In 1789 people meant only male, white, educated, land-owning, high falutin, and in some states, Protestant (there were no buggie bumper stickers proclaiming - I’m a Zen Buddhist and I vote!) But slowly, as our nation matured, our definition of people expanded to including blacks, women, Indians, 18, 19 and 20 year olds, and now, for a limited time only, Zen Buddhists. As we the people becomes even more inclusive, I believe power will flow to more and more of us. And we all lived happily ever after. No. This year’s election was a reversal of the trajectory of American history, and a narrowing of people and restriction of power, which is why, more than ever, in order to keep the republic we’ve got to educate and empower all the people in our classrooms (or preople, as I call my under 18 non-voting students)! There’s plenty of signs that our republic is slipping away: gerrymandering, minority rule, disagreement on basic facts, a growing disregard for the rule of law, and a creeping authoritarianism.

Teach like the Republic depends upon it.

A vital living democratic republic depends on a well educated, active, and highly caffeinated people. In 1992 I started teaching in inner-city Houston, dedicating myself to teaching the republic. I was up against a lot! The schools I taught in were underfunded, ill-equipped, and thoroughly demoralized, but even in the most affluent sectors of the republic, America was not overdosing on civic literacy: More Americans can name the Three Stooges than the three branches of government (though currently, I believe, there is some overlap - Larry, Moe, Executive Branch. Is that right?); four in ten Americans can not identify a single First Amendment right (or maybe they just didn’t know that they had the freedom to say them out loud!); and believe it or not, only 17% of Americans can even identify their own political ideology (“I don’t know, I’m definitely either conservative or liberal!”)! As the political saying goes, “half the people read the newspaper, and half the people vote. Let’s hope it’s the same half.” Sadly, that old maxim is already woefully optimistic and outdated. As of 2016, only about 2 in 10 Americans got their news from a print newspaper - half the number who got their news online. The 2017 version of the quote would be, “twenty percent of people read the newspaper, 50% of eligible voters vote in presidential elections, let’s hope it doesn’t get any hotter on this planet!” Teaching my students about the Three Stooges of government is just the start; education, of course, is about more than just knowing stuff. For the people to keep the republic we must teach this generation civic literacy so that they not only how government works, but also whether it works, for whom, why it works the way it does, what caused it to work/not that way, what the effects this are, how to tell fact from fiction, information from opinion, to be skeptical consumers of news and information, to understand cause and effect, to evaluate facts, and, in sum, to think critically and be a good citizen. Civic literacy is the backbone of democracy and essential to keeping our republic, and according to recent studies, it’s at an all time low. Today, after my 22 plus years in the classroom it looks like our republic is on life support, and I can’t help but think it’s time to teach harder and up our civil literacy game!

Here’s what I do about it. Teach for civic literacy.

A couple of years ago as rich visual data proliferated across the internet, I wondered why so few of these marvelous mind-expanding resources were filtering down to the my students. And when I did share charts and graphs in class, why were my perfectly intelligent students, so ill-equipped to process the this data? To build critical visual literacy, I decided to start every class with critical questions about curious, relevant, and engaging graphs, charts, maps, cartoons, and infographics about American government. Not only were my students exposed to rich social studies content, but they were building critical visual fluency - and enjoying it! Before long, students began to bring their own visual data into class and our daily visual bell ringer was expanded to include an action extension where student-citizens can practice the vital skills of keeping the republic. I dared to imagine how our entire republic would benefit from activating these same critical visual skills and civic participation.

What will you do keep the Republic?

in a democracy, people get the government they deserve. And as America slouches into civic illiteracy, it is no surprise that we’ve got a Stooge running our government. Join us online for our daily civic bell ringers, or even better, have your students create their own! How will you answer when a student asks what kind of government we have?

There is a Zen saying, "When the student is ready, the teacher appears." I use every tool I have to engage and inspire students so that they are ready to learn. I also draw inspiration from the great Italian educator, Maria Montessori who wrote. "The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did not exist." We teachers work hard, pushing and pulling; cheering them on - all the while trying not to be seen. Preparing our students so that once we have vanished they can continue a life of learning without knowing we are always there beside them.

In the past I’ve written about how powerful questions have inspired my students to take informed civic action. Of all my students’ accomplishments, nothing makes me prouder than their civic engagement, whether it’s in an NGO in Washington, a community foundation in Winston-Salem, a school in Kenya, an orphanage in Haiti, or wherever they choose to make a difference in the world. Their vital work all begins with a question.

Last week I led professional development trainings in North Carolina and Virginia in the inquiry-powered model of learning that uses compelling questions of rich multimedia sources of information to engage students with the world. Dr. Emma Thacker of Wake Forest University, Andy Kraft, the head of social studies instruction for the Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools, and I spent three days training twenty social studies teachers on the inquiry-based learning model - a pedagogical approach that invites students to explore academic content by posing, investigating, and answering compelling questions. Inquiry puts students’ questions at the heart of learning, and places just as much value on the asking and pursuing questions, as on answering them. You'll find a great example of field-tested and future-ready inquiry learning right here.

You may have heard of Google – humanity’s external hard drive – where you can find just about every answer. Since Google is about a billion times faster and a trillion times more knowledgeable than even the smartest student, modern education now needs not to teach kids the answers, but train them to ask and pursue questions. Kids don’t need to learn to be Google they need to learn to command Google. Our inquiry-learning professional development moves teachers from the past to the future.

In this future-ready, inquiry based model, compelling questions lead students through engaging multimedia sources to active understanding and informed civic action.

The key is learning to question

There are three steps in the inquiry process.

1) Start with a question.

Do you remember when there was no Google? Google it. Google was founded on September 4, 1998 in Menlo Park, CA – a fact that, thanks to Google, I don’t need to know, but that everyone needs to be able to find. Google started on the same day as I began my fifth year of teaching. By then, I already knew that filling brains with trivia was not the point of education, but as I looked around my school it was all that most of my colleagues were doing. Over the years, as Google has moved from desktop to laptop to the ubiquity of the phone, it’s become clear that out-knowing Google is no more possible than my cat catching a squirrel flying a Space Shuttle. And besides, education is bigger and nobler than cut, paste, & copy. Machines can do that; humans can do so much more!

The first and most essential step in inquiry learning is finding a compelling question in the content. Questions are like doors, and whatever content we teach will be most relevant and compelling to students when entered through powerful questions. Strong questions will make most any student actually want to know the answer. Start with the big questions & the little ones will follow. Start with the little questions & that’s usually where you’ll end.

Here’s a chart of two different sorts of questions.

2) Follow the question through rich and varied sources.

Even though we live in a visually rich and stimulating age, surrounded by a flowing 3-dimensional data stream of cartoons, pictures, videos, text, magazines, maps, charts, and infographics, most teachers are stuck in the two-dimensional world of blackboards and words. Powerful teachers are not lecturers; they are curators who assemble information from the many rich and potent sources that surround us, and marry them to compelling questions for and from our students. Here’s a list of some sources of information for students.

And here’s what the students can do with their information to become actively engaged with the material.

Students use data to make Venn diagrams, mind maps, graphic organizers, charts, compare/contrast, rankings, write letters, turn information into Tweets, turn information into an analogy, use emoticons to convey information, make an argument, make an infographic with Piktochart, present learning, make a Prezi, make a blog, make a Tumblr, turn the information into a cartoon, make a caption for a photograph.

In our professional development I helped teachers curate active lessons using exciting and varied, information-rich sources.

3) Do something about it!

The end point of inquiry learning is informed action, which transforms students from passive learners to active citizen practitioners.

Here are examples of informed civic action:

1. Petition the government about an issue of importance. Get people to sign your petition or create an online petition at change.org

Curiosity is a good thing. And by the way, curiosity didn't kill the cat; it was boredom.

In North Carolina, we spent three days together with teachers, shepherding them through the inquiry-learning system: modeling inquiry-based lessons, reflecting upon our work, and assisting them in writing their own inquiry-based lessons. At the end of our three-day professional development, each of the 20 teachers presented the inquiry-based unit they had produced. In the months ahead, I will serve as a civic engagement expert and curriculum writing coach, helping these teachers create and teach two more inquiry-based units, which will serve as models and templates in the professional learning communities they will lead at their home schools. Next August, as a capstone of our work, in a professional development day for the entire social studies faculty of the Winston-Salem Forsyth County School District, our peer leaders will present and share their units, best practices, and lessons learned from their experience. Our work has already been inspiring, empowering, and transformative for all the teachers involved, and as the lessons and excitement are shared through our professional learning communities, the effects of inquiry learning will ripple out through the schools and classrooms across the district.

In New Kent County Virginia, I led the New Kent High School social studies faculty in a daylong hyper-abridged inquiry-learning teach-in. Even in the confines of one short day, we were able to create inspiring and empowering lessons that ask students to follow compelling questions through a sea of pictures, photographs, cartoons, charts, graphs, maps, writings, journal entries, data, and more to find answers that they then act upon. The lessons the teachers created and shared at the end of the day were creative, compelling, and engaging, and I know their students will profit from these empowering inquiry-based lessons. I only wish I had more time to partner with these inspiring teachers.

Our inquiry learning professional development had a transformative and empowering effect on all the participants who will now share their excitement with their colleagues through their schools’ professional learning communities. I would love to bring the power of inquiry learning through professional learning communities to your district as we move from the past into the bright future.

If you'd like to bring training in inquiry learning to your school please contact me at milnerjonathan@gmail.com